Lodinkinni
by TheBigBadWolfable
Summary: SHEILD had asked her to lead this project almost three years ago, and every new location she needed to travel to for observations seemed to get more desolate and less sophisticated. Thor/Jane Loki/Darcy
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's note: This is my first story in the Thor universe but hopefully it won't be my last, so enjoy!**_

* * *

Jane sighed in frustration, pushing the many papers piled up on the desk away from herself and glaring at the computer screen. After a long minute she groaned and let her head fall against the desk with a dull thunk.

The numbers just didn't seem to fit! No matter what simulations she ran she just couldn't get the final pieces to mesh together. She'd been over it a million times, with multiple duplication data entries, and even collecting entirely new field sets. She was so much smarter than this, and yet she was stumped by simple mathematics.

Years ago SHEILD had hired her to produce these maps of the galaxy, but just when the project had been on the point of wrapping up she just couldn't connect the lose ends together. It had seemed so simple, it was so simple, and yet it had her stumped.

Jane's pen rolled from the table clattering loudly onto the floor, causing Darcy to jerk awake from where she had dozed off in her chair.

Jane didn't blame her, Canada wasn't exactly exciting. Jane felt guilty sometimes, Darcy should be doing so many better things with her life, but she seemed unwilling to leave her employer. Secretly, Jane was thankful, she had gotten so used to Darcy's presence since the political science major had signed onboard for an internship, she couldn't even imagine how she would have survived these years without her.

Darcy scrubbed her face and muttered something about getting fresh coffee. She stretched and groaned, zipping up her heavy coat and cramming thickly socked feet back into her snow boots. Jane watched her pause to kick the shitty little space heater next to the door on her way out of the makeshift lab. A part of Jane was amused watching the piece of crap chug away next to top of the line scientific equipment.

SHEILD had asked her to lead this project almost three years ago, and every new location she needed to travel to for observations seemed to get more desolate and less sophisticated. Now way up in northern Canada, their lab was set up in a tiny run down garage a few hundred feet from an aged cabin. It wasn't anything like a posh or cozy vacation, and the environment was starting to drag on the both of them. They were struggling through early winter, and the snowfall was thick, leaving them with constant electrical problems.

Besides the hum of the computers, the world around them was almost entirely silent. The miles on miles of rolling blanketed forest deadened all sound. They were just about an hour drive from the nearest town, which could hardly be called a town at all. Besides each other, they only life they usually ever saw was a weekly SHEILD supply truck, which while invaluable to their survival, wasn't usually staffed with the friendliest of agents. Silently Jane felt herself longing for the plush accommodations they had been treated to at the Norway observatory when SHEILD had first hired them.

As soon as the fleeting memories of Norway crossed her mind, Jane attempted to push them away. It wasn't a time she liked to think about. She remembered so achingly trying to push her way through her work in the lab, with a hole eating right through her insides. She remembered the brightly colored front page of a newspaper in a language she didn't need to know how to read.

Thor had obviously returned. Even thousands of miles away from New York, where he apparently was, his and the other 'Avengers' faces were plastered everywhere, the news of the battle had spread across the globe like wildfire.

At first Jane had felt such a surge of hope and excitement when word had reached her. But time dragged on, and while news of the event was still beating down every channel in her Norwegian outpost, it was clear that the battle had long been over. Not even so much as a note from Thor. Although SHEILD had talked her out of her attempts to reach Thor almost a year before, she had still never given up hope that he would indeed return to her. She felt silly and small now for such a thing.

She had refused to watch the few cell phone videos Darcy had found online, depicting the chaos and fight that had gone on in the streets. Jane had felt like her heart was being torn in half, but Darcy was ever the optimist. She kept promising Jane that Thor was just busy saving the world, that there had to be so much going on they didn't know about yet, and that she was sure he would return to her as soon as he could. But now almost two years after that, they barely spoke of Thor anymore.

Jane fought to blink back tears and she rubbed her tired eyes, so grateful when Darcy returned with a fresh thermos of coffee. Her assistant struggled to yank the door shut against the swirling snow outside.

"You know," Darcy griped. "I think SHEILD just sent us here to die." Jane rolled her eyes and accepted a new fresh cup of coffee from her.

"Seriously though," Darcy continued. "We're gonna freeze to death and no one will ever know." Jane tried her best to smile weakly and Darcy muttered an apology reminding herself how much her boss really didn't enjoy morbid humor. It wasn't like SHEILD was going to let them die, not if it meant some perfectly good equipment would go to waste.

"So what are we tackling today?" Darcy attempted to change the subject, returning to her chair. Jane tried her best to explain her current hang up to her assistant, but it wasn't any use. It was the same problem she had struggled with yesterday, and the day before. Darcy gave up trying to understand after a while and dug up the newspaper they had most recently been delivered and began thumbing through it. Jane tried furiously for a few more hours to approach her road block from different points of view but eventually she gave up for the day, and they both trudged back through the new drifts to the bare bones cabin at the top of the hill.

They were barely inside the door before Darcy began her usual cursing. "The power's out again!" She called from inside the dark space. Jane moved over to the small fireplace, and began her nightly struggle to get the thing going.

A little ancient television sat silent on top of a pile of old notebooks, which was disappointing to Jane. She enjoyed the small slivered connection to the outside world, even if two of the three channels that came in were in French.

Dinner was some less than impressive reheated leftovers, but that wasn't anything new to the two of them. Jane never would have thought she would find herself missing her tiny trailer in the New Mexico desert. But again, she had to push those memories out of her mind. Finally when dark had fallen she got to settle in next to Darcy on the couch with a large mug of hot chocolate.

Without even the puny TV to keep them entertained, Darcy eventually dragged out her most recent knitting project, and Jane reluctantly collected more of her notes from the day in her lap. Within the next hour Jane was falling asleep, her notes sliding off onto the bearskin rug.

* * *

Jane had resigned herself to this routine, but not two weeks later, things changed dramatically. She had been preparing a sub par breakfast when the expected SHEILD truck rolled up, but before a single box appeared Jane watched a young man walk up and approach the door as if to knock.

When Jane left the kitchen window to walk into the living room, she found Darcy holding a curtain aside staring quite rudely at him through the window, where he stood not three feet from the glass determinedly ignoring her. He knocked formally again, and Darcy turned to look at Jane with her eyebrow raised. Jane just shrugged and gestured for her to open it.

Darcy yanked the door open. "What's up?" She asked nonchalantly, looking the young agent up and down. He was wearing the normal stiff black uniform that looked neither comfortable, or well suited for the snow.

"Excuse me." The man stated curtly. "I am looking for Dr. Foster."

"That's me." Jane said, as she became suddenly very much aware that she was still in her pajamas. When it became awkwardly clear that the man had no intention of stepping into the cabin, Jane came forward and accepted a sealed letter he presented.

Jane stared at the front, which only contained her name, before flipping it over and breaking the seal, pulling out the formal sheet of paper. She perused the document for a minute, biting her lip and squinting in concentration as she reread it several times.

"SHEILD wants us to come to New York?" She asked finally. But it seemed she was only talking to Darcy, because the agent made no action to reply.

"Why?" Darcy asked surprised, reaching for the letter, which seemed to displease the SHEILD man because he took a sudden step forward, causing Darcy to halt her movement.

Jane took another look back down at the request. "I think it's classified." She muttered with a frown.

"Once you have completed reading and gained and understanding of the memo," the agent spoke. "I have been ordered to destroy it."

"Oh…" Jane said quietly, still surprised, but handing the letter back to the operative anyway.

"If you are agreeing to the request," he continued. "I am to inform you that your travel will be attended to a week from today." Then he left, without so much as a backwards glance at the two stunned girls standing in the cabin doorway.

"Shit," Darcy muttered as they watched the truck pull out of the driveway. "I don't think we really had much of a choice there."

"I guess we'll start packing then?" Jane asked. She definitely knew they should go, but she had a hard time feeling excited about the prospect. The letter hadn't said much at all, and she had a hard time fathoming that SHEILD would want them closer to headquarters for any good reason.

"What could SHEILD want from us in New York?" Jane asked seriously.

"Who knows…" Darcy stared out the window thoughtfully. "Maybe they're making a sexy calendar?" Jane snorted and reached out to playfully smack her friend as Darcy cracked herself up.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dammit Banner I still can't read this crap!" Darcy called across the lab, waving his handwritten page of notes in the air.

Dr. Banner sighed exasperatedly and made his way over to the assistant. "Please Darcy no yelling today." He requested as calmly as ever, smoothing over the front of his neatly pressed dress shirt. There were unusually dark rings under his eyes, and it didn't look like he'd shaved in the last couple days.

"What?" Darcy asked cheerfully, taking the pen she was chewing out of her mouth for a moment. "Rough weekend?"

The doctor winced ever so slightly. "Something like that." He muttered.

Personally, Darcy had a hard time imagining the mild-mannered doctor up to much of anything wild or extravagant on his weekends. Still, he could be a closet alcoholic or something, he certainly seemed dark and brooding enough. He probably lived alone; Darcy had never heard him talk about any family.

"C'mon doc, this is just ridiculous," Darcy accused, handing the paper she had been attempting to transpose into the computer back to him. His squiggly handwriting was pretty and well-practiced, but absolutely impossible to read; and reading crappy handwriting was Darcy's official job. Banner had to squint in order to dictate his notes aloud to her, as Jane came in slowly through the lab door with several cups of fresh coffee.

Darcy and Jane had arrived in New York more than a month ago, and they had spent almost the entire time locked up in what they assumed, but were never told, was SHEILD headquarters; way underground in one of the most high-tech labs Darcy had ever seen. Apparently Jane's mapping systems had been upgraded to top-secret and top priority, so SHEILD was pulling out all the stops to speed up the process.

This meant endless long days in a cold concrete room with no windows, but it was nice to be around civilization once more, even if the civilians were mostly SHEILD employees. The only other place they usually were was Stark Tower, where they were actually being housed in a high-end apartment set up. They had been told that the famous Tony Stark was working with SHEILD and had offered the living space for them, even though they had never met the man. They had however, spent some time with his redheaded assistant, who Darcy found she liked very much.

The only other person they had really actually met so far was Dr. Banner himself, who claimed to only be a physician, but who had no trouble at all keeping up with Jane and her science stuff. He had wandered in one day, claiming to be looking for some peace and quiet, and had been intrigued enough by Jane's work to become a somewhat permanent figure in the lab. Whatever Dr. Banner actually did for SHEILD, something he was very tightlipped about, it didn't seem to take up much of his time.

"Dr. Foster," he greeted cheerfully as he waved her over. "You need to see these new printouts, the secondary numbers are looking good so far." Jane seemed genuinely pleased with this information, as they looked the information over, talking about refraction dimensions and things that Darcy usually zoned out about.

"What about that tracker from the South Pole?" Jane asked.

The doctor frowned slightly. "Still not great." He admitted. "They just don't reflect what your equations would expect, it's baffling." Darcy was well aware that Dr. Banner was not a dumb man, and anything he found baffling had to be a serious problem.

"Well thank you Bruce." Jane said seriously as she distractedly handed off Darcy her coffee. "These preliminary numbers are still a step in the right direction."

Jane sat down next to her assistant and smiled cheerfully. "How's it going Darce?" She asked playfully, using the nickname she knew Darcy hated so much.

Darcy made a face and gestured at the small stack of notes Banner had put together the week before. "Just taking forever to read the good doctor's handwriting here."

"Well you know what they say about doctors." Jane commented cheekily, in a surprisingly good mood.

"Shouldn't he be rich then too?" Darcy muttered quietly so only Jane would hear. "Rich people aren't that mopey." Jane nudged Darcy in her best chastising way under the table, but didn't say anything.

It took Darcy almost all day to get through Banner's notes, mostly because she dragged her feet through the whole process. The two scientists had been debating over the morning's readouts most of the hours anyway, despite all of SHEILD's best efforts progress was still slow. Painfully slow. Still, at least it was keeping Darcy employed.

For the next few days it was the same numbers over and over, until Jane and the doctor had talked themselves in circles. It was the exact thing she had seen for almost a year now, thousands of different approaches to the same problem. But she supposed it still had to be some kind of progress.

* * *

"Tony!" Pepper hissed across the table. "Keep it down please," she chastised nervously glancing around the dining room. "You know you aren't supposed to be talking about this in public, how many times will it take for you to learn?"

Stark waved his steak knife through the air in a dramatically carefree manner. "Quit worrying so much." He grinned. "Fury can kiss my ass, like anybody in this damn room has a clue what we're talking about."

"Who the hell thought it was a good idea to bring you into SHEILD anyway? You're the least low profile person they could have found." Darcy commented, stabbing a roasted potato onto the end of her fork.

"To be fair," Jane added, "If you had tried to explain SHEILD to me before I was involved I would have thought you were certifiable." The astrophysicist wasn't particularly worried that any of the average restaurant goers were going to pick up on anything life changing.

"Be that as it may," Pepper sighed. "I'm tired of heading off Phil after each supposed security breach." She refolded her napkin and tucked it back onto her lap; Jane envied her ability to effortlessly pull of a crisp white pantsuit at an active dinner table.

"His name is Agent Coulson." Stark corrected seriously, eyeing his fiancé. Pepper gave him a sweet yet patronizing glance.

"So will you tell me where you've been if I can guess?" Darcy asked the billionaire, desperately trying to wiggle the answer out of him. Tony Stark had just recently returned from a two week absence on some kind of secret SHEILD mission, which they technically weren't even supposed to know about. But Stark definitely couldn't resist a good opportunity to brag, and Darcy knew it.

"Alright but you have to guess the exact zip code." Stark countered.

"You gotta give me a hint." Darcy insisted. Pepper made pointed eye contact with Jane and rolled her eyes a little, returning to her poached fish.

"I told you," Stark smoothed down the front of his dress shirt, "It was strictly a teambuilding retreat. Lots of hugging and crying." Jane had to give the business mogul some credit; his poker face was incredible.

"Yeah right." Darcy was getting excited, forgetting to whisper. "What did you blow up? Who were you sent to kill?"

"Shhhhhh!" Pepper hissed as their voices drew a couple glances their way inside the luxurious dining room. Jane couldn't suppress a small giggle.

"Quit stalling and guess." Stark demanded.

"Northern hemisphere." Darcy hedged after a quiet moment.

"Weak." He snorted. "Anyone who attended elementary school knows that more than 70% of the Earth's land mass is in the northern hemisphere. Try bringing something substantial to the table."

Darcy turned an imploring look onto her boss. Jane just shrugged; she really didn't have any idea where Stark could have been. "Actually," Jane interjected, "Have any of you seen Coulson lately?"

"Why?" Stark narrowed his eyes curiously at her.

"I've been meaning to talk to him about relocating some of my data collection points, but I haven't been able to contact him in weeks." She explained.

If Stark knew anything about the agent's whereabouts he wasn't forthcoming with the information. "Can't we just hit up Fury?" Darcy asked seriously.

"I don't know." Jane admitted. "Isn't it a little trivial for the big boss?"

"Fury's just an overpaid babysitter." Stark quipped.

"I had a short conversation with him last week, I can try to reach him again for you." Pepper offered, pulling out one of the many phones she seemed to carry on her at all time.

"What exactly did you talk to him about?" Stark interrupted abruptly. Jane followed Pepper's example and ignored him.

"Oh I don't want to bother him it's not urgent, it's just something I'd like to discuss with him at some point." Jane explained.

"You're underestimating the priority level of your work." Stark added seriously.

"Why?" Darcy asked, intrigued, leaning over the table. "What do they need these maps so urgently for?" Stark leaned back and crossed his arms smugly, refusing to answer. Darcy flicked a little bit of mashed potatoes at him, which he dodged, but which definitely wasn't appropriate in such a nice place. Jane swatted halfheartedly at her assistant.

"What did Coulson want with you?" Stark rounded back onto his fiancé as soon as he had returned upright.

"Who said he called me?" Pepper asked innocently, smirking as she put down her fork. A vein throbbed noticeably on the side of the billionaire's forehead.

"Don't think they would have been able to keep you so undercover outside the US." Darcy mused, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

"That's a fair point." Pepper smiled.

"I think most SHEILD centers are in low population areas too." Jane added, mentally running over the few locations she knew the organization inhabited.

"It depends on what they were doing though." Darcy cut in. "Yeah they'll be in a desert somewhere if they're building some secret machine, but maybe Stark has other talents."

"I was negotiating a contract to be the new SHEILD spokesmodel." Tony boasted, running a hand through his hair. "You know, pump up the image."

"You're a public relations train wreck!" Darcy accused.

"This is pointless." Jane muttered quietly to Pepper who seemed to at least be enjoying the debate.

"Most of SHEILD is pointless, dear." Pepper whispered quietly while patting Jane's shoulder. When Jane looked back up at the table, she noticed that Stark seemed to be watching her somewhat intently, if only for a split second.

"Why don't you just crash the debriefing meeting on Monday?" Stark suggested casually, picking up his fork again.

"There are debriefing meetings?" Jane asked.

Pepper scoffed. "Showboating mostly."

"Like we'd be allowed anywhere near that kind of stuff." Darcy muttered.

"There's always a couple hundred people," Stark disagreed, "Nobody would notice you."

"A couple hundred people?" Jane questioned. "Here in New York? How many people actually work here?" Jane herself had never seen more than about a dozen different people in her months working in New York. That being said she wasn't encouraged to venture far beyond her own lab.

Stark shrugged. "I could guess, but it's a fair number."

"Was Banner with you?" Jane asked. "He's been traveling a lot lately. At least I think he's traveling." She added, Stark pausing noticeably.

"How well do you know Bruce?" Pepper asked seriously, a small frown forming.

"He just hangs around the science." Darcy explained, eyeing the potatoes left so far untouched on her employer's plate.

"He's been very helpful with my mathematical problems, I don't know what he's been formally educated in but he brings serious insight to some of my hurdles." Jane added.

"Kind of a bore though." Darcy muttered quietly, and Stark cracked a grin.

"Actually," he mentioned, "I've worked with Banner plenty before he helped me with a renovation project just last month."

"Renovation?" Jane asked, confused.

"The hell kind of doctor is he?" Darcy spouted.

"Just a little demolition." Stark said seriously. Pepper coughed abruptly, choking a little on her food. Jane reached out to pat her back gently. Darcy kept her eyes narrowed intently on the business mogul, even as the waiter arrived to offer them the dessert menu.

* * *

It was the type of cold overcast morning Jane had come to expect from her days in New York. Not that weather ever bothered her much. The SHEILD car that was transporting her and Darcy to work was slow-moving through the early morning traffic. Her assistant's head was steadily drooping onto her chest, never particularly lively or active before noon.

Jane didn't mind the silence. She hadn't spent much of the last few years socializing, and having fast tracked her way through college she often felt like she never had as many friends or connections as other young girls seemed to. She wasn't sure it bothered her though; few young women got to work in the field of astrophysics. Her recent struggles with her project had been frustrating, but she still preferred her profession to anything else, and she could hardly imagine going back to the so-called real world after seeing so much of SHEILD.

_The real world_. A heavy feeling slipped into the bottom of Jane's stomach. She watched silently through the tinted glass as what seemed to be an ordinary couple shared a quick breakfast from a street vendor, the man laughing enthusiastically over something the girl was saying. Jane felt her insides twist uncomfortably, and she tried to push the thoughts away.

She refused to think about him, to waste any more time mulling over what might as well have been a short-lived fantasy, or a dream she had once had. But there wasn't much inside the quiet car to distract her. She and Darcy never talked about the subject anymore, and she was sure her assistant took great steps to avoid mentioning New Mexico at all.

Still the memories weighed on her every now and then. Was it getting better? Jane thought so. It was a long and painful forgetting process, but she felt like it drained her less and less every year. It wasn't a happy thought, but it was a strangely hopeful one.

_"Someday."_ Jane thought silently to herself as the car began to move again, bringing her deeper into the city.

* * *

**Author's note: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! It always takes me a little while to get the ball rolling on a story, but I'm excited that this one is starting to pick up steam. Thank you so much for your encouragement it does a great deal to help me get the ideas from my head to the paper. **


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